The Power of Movement, the Beauty of Justice

The anti-immigrant movement has been known to use a wide diversity of tactics when pushing their anti-immigrant agenda. Often, those broad tactics highlight the connections between our movement and allied movements. A recent example of this has been the connections made by the anti-immigrant movement between immigration and its supposed impact on the environment.

What is this principle really saying though? It seems to suggest that certain people deserve less and should be kept from aspiring to live a life of dignity with job, health, and educational security. It seems to suggest that certain people, namely those born in the United States with white skin, are the ones who are entitled to the world’s resources. I say this because of the historic discrimination that not just immigrants, but other ethnic and racial groups have felt at the hands of the United States government. Latinas, Black women, and Native American women for example, are constantly policed by the state in their reproductive and parenting choices.

Focusing on the changing environmental impact of a migrant, rather than the disproportionate impact of wealthy countries like the US, is a losing attempt to shift the blame, once again, onto the backs of migrants. We’ve seen this before in the realm of the environment, where fears of overpopulation are directed at women of color internationally, despite over-consumption and larger environmental impacts in Western countries.

Rallying against immigration and immigrants is not going to help the worsening condition of the planet. If anything, research has shown that restrictive measures on immigration pushes people to seek irregular paths to immigration. And then what happens? Countries are pushed to secure borders and spend millions on a wall between countries? People are reduced to less than human and deemed invisible by the state because of their lack of a social security number and thus relegated to lower rungs of society where they are kept from essential resources.

These arguments simply highlight the need for the immigrants rights movement to ally with the environmental justice movement so that we can counter these racist and anti-immigrant claims.

Instead of focusing on limiting migration to care for the environment, why not focus on reducing environmental impact in the countries that use the most resources? To truly care for the world, there needs to be sacrifice at all levels, and a recognition that a carbon footprint of the average American is not okay, and it is not the fault of migrants, or of women in developing countries.

Just like the anti-immigrant network has power because of its constituents, so does the movement advocating for more progressive policies. They are not the only ones who can make connections across movements. We can too. Let’s work together.